Just before going to bed (so not the best time) and on Twitter (not the best venue) I got into a discussion with a friend about positive discrimination, specifically in games. I tried to explain why a 50/50 hiring policy wouldn’t be representative of the state of play and wouldn’t be good for business. Twitter made that a bit ham-fisted though and it was apparently received that I was somehow in favour of discrimination.

This, then, is my attempt to expand on the point and as to why positive discrimination is a bad idea and that the problem lies elsewhere. At the end I’ll try to suggest some solutions.

None of the below example is meant to be realistic, just a mental exercise to illustrate the problem.

For the sake of argument, say that business boss, Mr Gamey McGamerson has a fat wad of venture capital and is looking to…

A Left-Anarchist Critique of Modern Feminism

I’ve become increasing more critical of modern feminism and more sensitised to the problems faced by men over the last three years or so. Prior to that time I would have called myself a feminist and progressive and, while my values haven’t changed, I no longer call myself either. As a result I am intimately familiar with how powerful cognitive bias and apophenia can be. Prior to my ‘revelatory’ experience I would have brushed off, ignored or not even noticed the million little ways in which men are mistreated, dismissed and misrepresented. Now I see it, though much of it is still – in my opinion – down to hypersensitivity, on both sides.

I have been following many of the ‘social justice’ issues that have been churning to the surface on social media since that period and trying to understand and debate the points…

Forgive the title, I’m not even a fan of The Big Lebowski but the wife loves it and so I was forced to watch it last night.

Also forgive the content, because I’m going to break with tradition and talk about my ‘feels’ and my ‘lived experience’ rather than using facts, data, studies, logic, reason and evidence as I normally would. You’re welcome to disagree, but this post isn’t about arguing.

I have been trying, for some time now, to get a handle on the ‘social justice’ movements and, in particular NuFem (as I have taken to calling modern, internet and NGO feminism as a whole).

Obviously I’ve been coming at it from a position of skepticism, empiricism and all the rest, as I usually do (along with sarcasm and humour). Here’s what I’ve encountered:

• Nobody is willing to explain or defend their point of view on these subjects. They…

I was on Al Jazeera’s The Stream to talk about Elliot Rodger and the #YesAllWomen hashtag.

The first video is the AJ one, watch that if you can. If it’s blocked in your country I mirrored the video in the second link, though I’m not sure how long it will stay up.

I didn’t get to cover everything I prepared, so I may add to this blog later.

Things I didn’t get to cover in the panel:

The Rodger Shootings

Lest we forget, besides Katherine Cooper and Veronika Weiss, Rodger also killed James Hong, George Chen, David Wang and Christopher Michaels-Martinez. He also killed himself, his final victim.

His ‘manifesto’ was not political, it was an autobiography as a rambling justification for his hatred. It was a narcissistic hate-bubble.

Calling what he did ‘terrorism‘ is utterly irresponsible and unforgivably inaccurate. His agenda was personal revenge. Not political change…

When the only tool you have is feminism, every problem looks like patriarchy.

Finally got a friend to talk all the way through their understanding of ‘patriarchy’ with me and worked out where the sharp divide is between my concept of what constitutes a patriarchy and theirs. It doesn’t change my position on the issue (we don’t live in a patriarchy) but it does pinpoint the divide. I regard patriarchy (like oligarchy, democracy, kleptocracy) etc in terms of being an institution, while others rate social factors over – and even above – political and structural ones.

Scruton’s ‘Dictionary of Political Thought’ (a pretty standard text) defines patriarchy thus:

Literally, the rule by fathers. Used to denote:

1. Forms of kinship relations in which the father is the bearer of authority, respect, property and hereditary privileges.
2. In political writings, especially those of a feminist persuasion, the dominance of social and…

Women’s reproductive rights are, quite rightly, a major issue. Autonomy over one’s own body, sexuality and reproduction is incredibly important and attempts to restrict or ban abortion are an infringement on human rights. Those who are against abortion typically cite irrational reasons – religion – for opposing it while rationalists, almost always, support a woman’s right to choose.

But what about a man’s reproductive rights?

Specifically, I’m talking about parental rights and responsibilities.

If a woman gets pregnant she has several choices.

1. Abortion.
2. Giving the child up for adoption.
3. Parenthood.

The man has absolutely no say whatsoever in the matter and whatever decision the woman makes he is saddled with.

Obviously there are biological concerns here. Only women can carry children – at the moment. There is no way to safely transfer a pregnancy to a surrogate and even then similar issues can come to apply. Any attempt at applying…

I was challenged to come up with examples of this on Twitter when I objected to some rather extremist feminist positions on the basis of egalitarianism. The argument was that feminism is in response to systematic oppression of women over centuries[1] and that the idea of men being oppressed for being men was ludicrous. I don’t believe that to be so. I do not think women are – or ever truly have been – entirely powerless and that the society that we might see as being oppressive is so to both men and women.

Is this shifting? Yes. Is this shift even? No.

Issues where men are discriminated against and oppressed have received no redress while women’s largely have been (presuming we’re talking about the liberal west). Men have lost a lot of rights and privileges (in the non social justice meaning) but they have retained a lot of the…

In a comment in the previous blog on this, I got a rather long reply. Which I’ll address here as a separate topic.

While I agree that men should feel comfortable buying sex toys, etc, I find this part problematic:

“If a man likes violent pornography, rough sex or rape fantasies the expectation is different. The alarm triggers go off and it is going to be thought they’re a risk. It’s going to be thought that because they enjoy the fantasy they’re going to want to do the deed. They are not afforded the same understanding of the difference between reality and fantasy that a woman is.”

and

“You know Christian Bale isn’t Batman. Right? What’s the difference? He beats up the Joker for our gratification, Jenna Jameson takes a facial for our gratification. The entertainment doesn’t define the person.”

1.) I would question what part of a supposedly…

I want you to ‘check your privilege’ about the phrase, ‘check your privilege’.

If someone is arguing with you, you should address their points, their reasoning, what they’re saying. When you tell someone to ‘check your privilege’ you are, essentially, engaging in an ‘ad hominem‘ fallacy, an ‘argument to the person’. For example:

“I don’t think that statement qualifies as sexist.”
“That’s because you’re a man, check your privilege.”

Simply because one is male (or white, or rich, or whatever else) doesn’t render one’s arguments invalid, it doesn’t mean you lack empathy, sympathy or imagination, it doesn’t even mean you haven’t experienced racism, sexism or whatever else yourself.

I’m sure in some ideal world ‘check your privilege’ is meant to mean ‘I say old chap, have you considered that your socioeconomic, racial and other statuses might affect your point of view?’ In practice however it means ‘Shut up…